Explosives are used in many types of applications, such as hydrocarbon well applications, seismic applications, military armament, and mining applications. In seismic applications, explosives are discharged at the earth surface to create shock waves into the earth subsurface so that data regarding the characteristics of the subsurface can be measured by various sensors. In the hydrocarbon well context, a common type of explosive that is used includes shaped charges in perforating guns. The shaped charges, when detonated, create perforating jets to extend perforations through any surrounding casing or liner and into the surrounding formation to allow communication of fluids between the formation and the wellbore. Also, in a well, other tools may also contain explosives. For example, explosives can be used to set packers or to activate other tools.
To detonate explosives, detonators are used. Generally, detonators can be of two types: electrical and percussion. A percussion detonator responds to some type of mechanical force to activate an explosive. An electrical detonator responds to a predefined electrical signal to activate an explosive. One type of electrical detonator is referred to as an electro-explosive device (EED), which may include hot-wire detonators, semiconductor bridge (SCB) detonators, exploding bridge wire (EBW) detonators, or exploding foil initiator (EFI) detonators.
With certain types of electrical detonators, a local electrical source is placed in the proximity of the detonator. Such an electrical source may be in the form of a capacitor discharge unit that includes a capacitor that is charged to a predetermined voltage. In response to an activation signal, the charge stored in the capacitor is discharged into another device to perform a detonation operation. Typically, due to the relatively large amount of energy that is needed, the capacitor discharge unit can be quite large, which leads to increased sizes of housings in downhole tools that contain such capacitor discharge units. Further, because of relatively large sizes, the efficiencies of conventional capacitor discharge units are reduced due to increased resistance and inductance of electrical paths in a detonator.